Such are the arguments of Julius Casinos (i.e. marriage is bad), the originator of deceits. At any rate in his book Concerning Continence and Emasculation (Περὶ ἐγκρατείας ἢ περὶ εὐνουχίας) he says these words:
"And let no one say that because we have these parts, that the female body is shaped this way and the male that way, the one to receive, the other to give seed, sexual intercourse is allowed by God. For if this arrangement had been made by God, to whom we seek to attain, he would not have pronounced eunuchs blessed; nor would the prophet have said that they are 'not an unfruitful tree,' using the tree as an illustration of the man who chooses to emasculate himself of any such notion (ἑαυτὸν τῆς τοιαύτης ἐννοίας εὐνουχίζοντα)."
And striving still further to support his godless opinion he adds: "Could not one rightly find fault with the Saviour if he was responsible for our formation and then delivered us from error and from this use of the generative organs?"
In this respect his teaching (δογματίζων) is the same as Tatian’s who departed from the school of Valentine. On this account he says:
"When Salome' asked when she would know the answer to her questions, the Lord said, When you trample on the robe of shame, and when the two shall be one, and the male with the female, and there is neither male nor female (ὅταν τὸ τῆς αἰσχύνης ἔνδυμα πατήσητε καὶ ὅταν γένηται τὰ δύο ἓν καὶ τὸ ἄρρεν μετὰ τῆς θηλείας οὔτε ἄρρεν οὔτε θῆλυ)."
In the first place we have not got the saying in the four Gospels that have been handed down to us (ἐν τοῖς παραδεδομένοις ἡμῖν τέτταρσιν εὐαγγελίοις), but in the one according to the Egyptians (ἀλλ´ ἐν τῷ κατ´ Αἰγυπτίους). Secondly Cassia seems to me not to know that it refers to wrath in speaking of and to desire in speaking of the female. When these operate, there follow repentance and shame. But when a man gives in neither to wrath nor to desire, both of which increase in consequence of evil habit and upbringing so as to cloud and obscure rational thought, but puts off from him the darkness they cause with penitence and shame, uniting spirit and soul in obedience to the Word, then, as Paul also says, "there is among you neither male nor female." (Οὐκ ἔνι ἐν ὑμῖν οὐκ ἄρρεν, οὐ θῆλυ). For the soul leaves this physical form in which male and female are distinguished, and being neither the one nor the other changes to unity. But this worthy fellow thinks in Platonic fashion that the soul is of divine origin and, having become female by desire, has come down here from above to birth and corruption. [Clement Strom. 3.13]
This is a very important reference because it comes immediately after the section we have been quoting earlier in this series - i.e. Clement's attack against the Carpocratian interpretation of a common gospel passage (Str. 3.1 - 11) not found in our canonical gospels. Is it possible that Clement is now citing from yet a different extra-canonical gospel? I don't think so and I will put forward a very strong argument in my next post - Clement demonstrates that 'the Apostle Paul' twice cites from this same gospel.
It is difficult for most people to even imagine that the apostle had a written gospel in front of him, but the Marcionites specifically say that he wrote the original text after an 'unspeakable' revelation from the highest heaven. Is it possible that 'Paul' suddenly had not only one but two different written gospel texts? No, it is hard enough for people to acknowledge or even think about the implications of the Marcionite paradigm let alone consider that there were many gospels floating around in his library. As such I think the same text or possibly short and long, public and secret versions of the same narrative as in to Theodore.
Yet whatever form this gospel took as we shall soon see, it was certainly related to the Diatessaron. After all Tatian is the connecting link between the two references (Str. 3.12) here and Julius Cassianus is always lumped together with Tatian, making him some sort of disciple of Tatian's (cf. Str. 1.21, Eusebius HE 6.13.7). Thus the gospel 'according to the Egyptians' which Cassianus cites here is probably a Diatessaron and undoubtedly related to 'Secret Mark'
Indeed it is worth noting that a number of authors have already suggested at least part of this connecting the 'gospel of Mark' preferred by those who said that Jesus was crucified while 'Christ' watched impassably (Irenaeus 3.11.7) with the gospel of the Egyptians mentioned here in Clement's Stromateis. Thus in a very real sense according to these men Clement knew and used a 'fuller' gospel of Mark which was known only (or only used by) the Egyptian Church.
The first person to suggest this was Harvey in his critical edition of Irenaeus's Against Heresies and the theory is developed by many authors including F F Bruce. Harvey writes that it did not appear that the heretics:
paid any particular veneration to the Gospel of St. Mark unless indeed they identified with his name of the see of Alexandria, the false gospel of the Egyptians as Hippolytus declares (cf. Philosophumena 5.2) [p.46]
Hitchcock also wonders whether "those who separated Jesus from Christ, saying that Christ remained impassible but that Jesus suffered may have identified the Gospel of the Egyptians which they used (Hippolytus Ph. v. 7) with St Mark the founder of the See of Alexandria." [Irenaeus of Lugdunum p. 212] Morton Smith also noted the similarities [Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark p. 90]
Perhaps the most interesting observation of all comes from C E Stowe in his the Four Gospels when referencing Origen's reference to the Gospel of the Egyptians alongside the Gospel of the Twelve Disciples (Hom Luke 1) writes:
the first was mainly an Egyptian edition of the Gospel of Mark, and the second nearly identical with the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. In his preface to Matthew Jerome says "There were many who wrote gospels, .... which, being edited by different authors, became the sources of diverse heresies, as that according to the Egyptians and Thomas, and Bartholomew and according to the twelve disciples"
Stowe has hit upon something very significant. Jerome not only supports the idea that there was an Alexandrian version of the gospel he cites 'editing' as establishing the difference between the 'heretical' text and the accepted text. Indeed it wasn't only canonical texts which seem to have fallen victim to later editing. Jerome certainly can be argued here to have preserved an original version of the aforementioned citation in Origen's First Homily on Luke which - as with most of the surviving Alexandrian's works - have become heavily redacted by fourth century editing.
